How a Driveway Is Installed: Base, Drainage & Permits

A driveway is a five-act build: tear out the old surface, excavate and grade the subgrade, compact a gravel base, pave the top, then let it cure. Most of that bill isn't the material you can see — site prep (excavation, grading, and the compacted stone base) runs roughly 30-50% of the installed price, which is why the same 600 sq ft can cost anywhere from $1 to $30 per square foot depending only on what goes on top. Here's each step, in order, and what you're paying the crew to do.

The 30-second answer

Crews remove any existing driveway, excavate 8-12 inches, grade the subgrade to a 1-2% slope for drainage, then spread and compact a 4-8-inch crushed-stone base. Only then does the surface go on — a poured concrete slab, rolled hot asphalt, sand-set pavers, or spread-and-crowned gravel. A new curb cut where the driveway meets the street needs a municipal permit, and concrete needs about 7 days before you drive on it. The base and grading you never see are what make or break the driveway — and a big share of the price.

Step 1: Demo and removal

If there's an old driveway, it comes out first — broken up, loaded, and hauled to a dump or recycler, down to bare subgrade so the new base sits on undisturbed soil. It's priced per square foot of the surface being removed:

Old surface removed	Tear-out cost
Asphalt	$1-$3.50/sq ft
Concrete	$2-$6/sq ft
Pavers	$1.50-$5/sq ft

Concrete is the priciest to remove — it's reinforced and heavy. A brand-new (virgin) driveway on soil that's never been paved skips this step entirely. Full removal-and-replace pricing is broken out in how much does a driveway cost.

Step 2: Excavate and grade

This is the step that decides whether the driveway drains — and it's mostly invisible when the job is done. The crew digs out 8-12 inches of soil, strips topsoil and organic material (which would rot and settle), and shapes the exposed subgrade. Per Concrete Network's exterior-slab slope guide, the surface wants a minimum 1-2% slope (about 1/8 to 1/4 inch per foot) that sheds water away from the house and garage so runoff never heads for the foundation. Get this wrong and no surface on top can fix it.

Step 3: Build the compacted base

The sub-base is the part homeowners underpay for and regret. The crew spreads 4-8 inches of crushed stone and compacts it in 3-to-4-inch lifts with a plate compactor — you can't compact a deep layer in one pass, so it goes in stages. This compacted base is what distributes vehicle load and, in cold climates, prevents frost heave from cracking the surface above. It sits under every material: concrete, asphalt, and pavers all ride on the same kind of base. A thin or skipped base is the single most common reason a cheap driveway fails early.

Step 4: Set forms and pave

Now the surface goes on, and the method changes with the material:

Material	How it's laid	Drive on after	Installed (typ.)
Gravel	Layered #3/#4 stone, crowned to drain	Immediately	$1-$3.50/sq ft ($2)
Asphalt	2-3 in. hot mix, rolled and compacted	~3 days	$5-$12/sq ft ($8)
Concrete	4-in. slab, formed, poured, jointed	~7 days	$6-$15/sq ft ($10)
Pavers	1-in. sand bed, set, edge-restrained	Immediately	$10-$30/sq ft ($18)

A few specifics on the two most common surfaces. Concrete is poured at a minimum 4-inch thickness (Concrete Network), finished (usually a broom texture for grip), and cut with control joints every 8-12 feet so the inevitable cracking happens in straight, hidden lines instead of across the slab. Asphalt is laid hot and immediately compacted with heavy rollers into a smooth, sealed surface. The asphalt-vs-concrete trade-off — cure time, upkeep, lifespan — is covered in asphalt vs. concrete driveway.

Step 5: The curb cut and permit

Where your driveway meets the public street, you're touching municipal infrastructure — so a new curb cut almost always needs a right-of-way permit, and the town typically requires the apron (the flared section at the road) to be poured in concrete because it takes municipal-vehicle loads. Fees are local and modest: the Town of Hempstead, NY, for example, charges $55 for a single-car curb cut and $75 for a double. We use a $50-$250 permit allowance in the calculator to cover the curb-cut and any driveway building permit. Pull it before the pour — retrofitting an unpermitted apron is expensive.

Step 6: Cure and settle

The last step is waiting. Pavers and gravel are done the moment they're compacted. Asphalt takes about 3 days for cars (up to 7 for trucks) and keeps hardening for 6-12 months before it's ready to sealcoat. Concrete needs roughly 7 days before a car and a full 28 days before heavy loads — rushing it is how you get early cracks. Plan parking around the cure, especially for concrete.

A worked example: replacing a 600 sq ft driveway

Here's the math for our typical project — a 600 sq ft (20 × 30 ft) two-car driveway, tearing out old asphalt and repouring in concrete, at mid-range national prices:

• Remove old asphalt, 600 sq ft × $2/sq ft: $1,200
• New concrete, 600 sq ft × $10/sq ft (includes excavation, base, forms, pour): $6,000
• Curb-cut / driveway permit allowance: $150
• Total: ~$7,350 on a flat, accessible lot

Swap the surface and the total moves with it: asphalt over the same prep lands near $6,150, pavers near $12,000, and a plain gravel drive near $2,550. Same footprint, same base work — the surface choice is most of the spread. Material-by-material breakdowns live on the driveway hub.

Get your number

The calculator prices exactly this process for your driveway — square footage, surface material, tear-out of the old drive, and the permit — and shows the takeoff, not just a total. Enter your dimensions for the full low/typical/high estimate.

Open the driveway cost calculator →